If disaster strikes, Cambria wants a Hwy. 1 evacuation plan with 2 lanes out instead of 1
It’s a nightmare scenario: A wildfire or other emergency prompts officials to order Cambria residents to evacuate immediately.
It doesn’t take long for southbound Highway 1 to turn into a virtual parking lot.
It’s the only way out of the hilly, forested community, the only southbound route to relative safety.
North of Cayucos, Highway 1 is a two-lane road with shoulders, a situation that’s been the topic of concerned conversations at many North Coast meetings in recent months. Those discussions ramped up after so many casualties of recent wildfire infernos were people trying to get out of the way.
Now, the North Coast Advisory Council and county Supervisor Bruce Gibson are approaching Caltrans, the CHP and other state agencies to find an official way to temporarily expand the capacity of certain stretches of the highway.
Advisers want to expand those sections into two one-way lanes leading away from the emergency, according to a concept letter the council sent to Gibson on Oct. 25.
“We believe that this might be achievable at relatively low cost through signage and public education,” council chairwoman Susan McDonald wrote in the letter.
In a Nov. 8 email interview, Gibson wrote that “I’ve talked with our staff and they well understand the need to make the most efficient use of Highway 1 if Cambria needs to be evacuated.
“They have confirmed that, according to our emergency operations plan, the highway could be configured to accommodate much higher traffic volumes in an emergency, perhaps even one-way flow.”
Gibson said county officials will confirm those details with the CHP, and he’s asked that they then provide the answers to the Cambria Fire Safe Focus Group and NCAC.
How would evacuation affect Cambria residents?
In McDonald’s letter to Gibson, she underscored the possible crisis — with details from recent evacuation scenario research done by Cal Poly professor Cornelius Nuworsoo, under the sponsorship of Cal Fire and the county Fire Safe Council.
Nuworsoo studied what could happen, for instance, if all residents of the West Lodge Hill and Marine Terrace neighborhoods of Cambria had to evacuate.
The Cal Poly professor determined that, due in part to congestion on southbound Highway 1, it would take more than four hours for those residents to reach the junction of Highway 1 and Highway 46 south of Cambria, designated as a safe refuge area. That time estimate doesn’t include the impact of vehicles that would normally be heading southbound on the highway.
Nuworsoo’s study presumed that all full-time and vacation rental units would be occupied.
The study also determined that it would take “nearly three hours for the anticipated volume of vehicles to traverse the heaviest traveled segment, … the section of Highway 1 south of Ardath Drive.” That’s the southernmost Highway 1 stoplight intersection in Cambria.
Nuworsoo is currently studying the impacts of evacuation traffic for other areas of Cambria.
Ways to prevent Highway 1 bottlenecks
In the NCAC letter to Gibson, McDonald wrote that the agency believes “the best potential solution to Highway 1 bottlenecks in emergency evacuations is to expand the highway’s emergency (not permanent) capacity.”
“We ask that the county, working through the appropriate departments and state agencies, pursue this goal with a focus on using the highway’s shoulders, which appear to be consistently 8 feet or more in width except for pinch points at bridges and guardrails,” the letter reads.
According to the letter, NCAC believes two stretches of the highway need “particular attention.” They are the southbound stretch from Burton Drive in Cambria to the Highway 46 junction, and the northbound side of the highway from San Simeon Acres to a potential safe-refuge area at the Hearst Castle Visitor Center.
“On both of these sections,” McDonald wrote, “the highway has wide paved shoulders on both sides and, it appears to us, enough overall room to allow two lines of traffic in one direction and one line — for emergency vehicles — in the other.”
The topic is certain to come up again at the next NCAC meeting, 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 20, at Mechanics Bank, 1070 Main St. in Cambria.
For details, go to https://ncacslo.org.
